Multiple sirehood in free-ranging twin rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).

Rhesus macaque females regularly copulate with a number of partners, and produce a single offspring per reproductive cycle in over 99% of cases. We used genotyping of 10 STR markers to determine paternity in the Cayo Santiago population of rhesus macaques. About 1,500 monkeys have been analyzed to date, with their marker genotypes entered into a computerized database. These data enable us to report the first documented case in any cercopithecine nonhuman primate species of the production of twin offspring sired by different males. Copyright 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.